Ethiopia activists warn PAFD is TPLF in Disguise

An Ethiopian activist group warned on Sunday against the new Europe-based alliance named PAFD, denouncing it as another “disguised” version of the “undemocratic” TPLF ruling party in Ethiopia.

The People’s Alliance for Freedom and Democracy (PAFD) was just formed this past week after 5 parties allegedly representing five tribes in Ethiopia united to “dismantle” the government in Addis Ababa and replace it with a “transitional order.” But according to the Ethiopian activists, the PAFD and the TPLF share the same “apartheid” ideology of separating Ethiopia by tribes “using a marxist interpretation of ‘self-determination up to secession.'”

“The TPLF failed to break apart Ethiopia using the self-determination ideology in 1991 because the majority Ethiopians were already ethnically mixed for many generations,” said the activist group in an email sent from New York.

“The PAFD will fail just like the TPLF failed,” the activists stated.

The New York & Addis Ababa based activist group Gosaye Ethiopia Movement (GEM) said it is using social media and networks in Ethiopia to mobilize multi-ethnic Ethiopians nationwide and worldwide against tribalism and apartheid.

“The largest ethnic group in Ethiopia is not Oromo or Amhara, it is ethnic-Ethiopian,” said the GEM activist group in its press release. Mixed ethnic-Ethiopians are believed to be the majority in Shewa zones, Addis Ababa and the urban parts of Ethiopia but they are also found in every regional states of the country, especially Oromia and SNNPR states, according to analysts.

The Ethiopian activists rejected the PAFD claiming to speak on behalf of five out of the 80 ethnic groups in Ethiopia, saying that “PAFD does not even represent those five ethnic groups because they are marginalized in their own ethnic blocs.”

In a press release, the GEM activists agreed that democratic change is needed in Ethiopia, but change must incorporate and empower all Ethiopians, including the majority “mixed Ethiopians” which are allegedly the most oppressed and underrepresent group in the current ethnic-federalism system of government, they said.